Solar panel producer China Singyes Solar Technologies signed a major deal yesterday after announcing that its first-half profit climbed 26 per cent.

Its earnings hit 171 million yuan (HK$217 million) as sales jumped 32 per cent to 1.7 billion yuan. Much of that increase in sales came from a 61 per cent surge in revenue from the company's building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) unit. Building-integrated photovoltaics are building materials with solar power functions.

BIPV accounted for nearly half of revenue, compared with 40 per cent last year. The company's financial controller, Jimmy Yu, said he hoped BIPV would account for an even greater share of future sales because the gross profit margin of the product remained high at 32 per cent. The company also recorded growth in its renewable energy, new materials and curtain walls businesses.

Singyes expects to complete 195MW of solar projects this year, of which 115MW have already been built. Yu said the company had 2.1 billion yuan of orders as of the end of August, including 150MW of solar projects and other solar-related products.

Announcing its results, Singyes signed a conditional agreement for the sale of a 100MW rooftop solar-power plant in Hunan to Fujian-based Goldpoly New Energy for an undisclosed amount. The plant is due for delivery by the end of the first quarter of next year.

The chairman of Singyes, Liu Hongwei, said: "The acquisition [by Goldpoly] marked the important first step of the strategic partnership between Singyes and Goldpoly", which will include large-scale, on-the-ground solar farms, urban micro-grid projects and green buildings.

"BIPV average sales price fell a little bit short of our expectations, but this was offset by the number of new BIPV projects," said a Sunwah Kingsway analyst who declined to be identified. He added that the cost of power generation would fall in the long term as the price of solar modules and convertors fell and efficiency improved. Beijing has raised its target for solar power capacity to 35GW by 2015 from 21GW this year, he said.

No interim dividend was declared. Singyes shares rose 10 per cent to close at HK$7.90 yesterday. Goldpoly shares slid 0.7 per cent to HK$1.50.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as China Singyes Solar profit climbs 26pc